Written Answers Friday 4 April 2008

Scottish Executive

Alcohol Misuse

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what systems and guidelines are used for the detection and management of alcohol misuse in accident and emergency departments and general hospital settings.

Shona Robison: Evidence based systems for detection of alcohol misuse are AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) and CAGE (attempts to C ut back on drinking, being A nnoyed at criticisms about drinking, feeling G uilty about drinking, and using alcohol as an E ye-opener).

  Available guidelines for the management of alcohol misuse are the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) Guideline 74 on the management of harmful drinking and alcohol dependence in primary care (including Accident and Emergency); Health Technology Assessment Report 3 on prevention and relapse in alcohol dependence, and the letter to NHS Board Chief Executives CEL 14 (2008): Health Promoting Health Service – action in acute care settings.

Alcohol Misuse

Ross Finnie (West of Scotland) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive on what basis the £25 million to tackle alcohol misuse, announced on 20 March 2008, was allocated to individual NHS boards.

Shona Robison: The £25 million was allocated using the formula for NHS boards’ general financial allocations for 2008-09, with an additional weighting factor applied to take account of prevalence of hazardous, harmful and dependent drinkers.

Alcohol Misuse

Ross Finnie (West of Scotland) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions were held with NHS boards prior to the allocation of the £25 million to tackle alcohol misuse, announced on 20 March 2008.

Shona Robison: We wrote to NHS boards in November 2007 explaining that subject to parliamentary approval of the draft budget, the majority of the £85 million increase in funding for tackling alcohol misuse would be allocated directly to NHS boards to increase access to early intervention, treatment, and for prevention activity.

Alcohol Misuse

Ross Finnie (West of Scotland) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers the prevalence of alcohol misuse in an NHS board area to be the most important criterion in determining the allocation of funding to tackle alcohol abuse.

Shona Robison: Prevalence is one of a number of factors relevant to determining allocation of funding for tackling alcohol misuse. Other factors, including deprivation, are included in the formula used for NHS boards’ general financial allocations.

Dentistry

Marlyn Glen (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS general dental practitioners there were in the (a) Dundee and (b) Angus local authority areas in each of the last five years, also expressed as a rate per 100,000 of the population.

Shona Robison: The information requested is shown in the following table.

  Number of Dentists1 Providing NHS General Dental Services; in (a) Dundee City and (b) Angus Local Authority Areas; at 31 March

  

Local Authority Area
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007


Angus
 
 
 
 
 


Number of dentists (Head Count)
49
47
45
54
56


Dentists per 100,000 population
45.3
43.7
41.5
49.5
50.9


Dundee City
 
 
 
 
 


Number of dentists (Head Count)
79
82
84
91
105


Dentists per 100,000 population
54.8
57.3
59.2
64.0
73.9



  Source: MIDAS (Management Information and Dental Accounting System). General Registers Office (GRO) mid year populations estimates as at 30 June 2002-2006.

  Note: 1. The number of NHS non-salaried and salaried principals, assistants and vocational dental practitioners, based on the location of the dental practice.

Flood Prevention

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the reporter’s advice to ministers on Aberdeen City Council’s public local inquiry in May 2006 and Moray Council’s public local inquiry in November 2007 took full account of regulations and guidance issued by Scottish ministers on promoting sustainable flood management.

Stewart Stevenson: Unlike structure plans which are approved by Scottish ministers, responsibility for the preparation and adoption of  local plan s lies with the  plan ning authority for the relevant area . The planning authority has to comply with statutory requirements, including ensuring that the plan conforms with the approved structure plan. The planning authority is also responsible for considering any objections to the plan, if necessary by appointing a reporter and holding a local plan inquiry, considering the reporter’s recommendations to them, incorporating any modifications it considers appropriate, and adopting the plan so that it is brought into force. It is for the planning authority to decide whether to accept or reject the recommendations made by the reporter. Scottish ministers can be expected to become involved only in exceptional circumstances. This could lead to modification or call-in of the local plan for Scottish ministers’ own decision.

  In respect of the Moray Council Local Plan the appointed reporter is currently working on his finalised report which is likely to be submitted to the council in summer 2008. I can however say that issues were raised by some local plan objectors regarding flood risk matters, including reference to current national planning policy and guidance on flooding and its relevance to development plan policies for flood risk areas. The council has proposed changes to the finalised plan in response to selected concerns raised by objectors. Accordingly, these and related sustainability issues did feature in both the informal hearings and formal sessions of this local plan inquiry and so will be reported by the reporter in due course as part of his overall report, conclusions and recommendations to the council.

  With regard to the Aberdeen City Local Plan, objections relating to flooding were made. The topic "Planning and Flooding" may be found on pages 43 to 51 of chapter 16 of the report into objections to the plan. Coastal flooding also arose in a site-specific instance in regard to land at Seaton. From the report, it will be seen that references are made to Scottish Planning Policy 7: Planning and Flooding, to Planning Advice Note 61: Planning and Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems and to Planning Advice Note 69: Planning and Building Standards Advice on Flooding. The inquiry was aware that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency had prepared new flood maps (referred to at the inquiry as "second generation" flood maps). At the time of the inquiry, these maps had not been published and were thus not submitted to the inquiry. The recommendations made by the reporters, to the planning authority, did take full account of national guidance.

General Practitioners

Jackson Carlaw (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance it has given to GPs on the rates that they can charge patients for calls to surgery phone lines.

Nicola Sturgeon: Guidance was issued on 29 March 2005 to the health boards and GPs that the NHS (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2004 were to be amended to prevent the use of national or premium rate telephone lines. These were considered to be an unacceptable barrier to access to a service which is otherwise provided free. The amendment came into effect on 1 July 2005.

Rail Network

Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what interest rate will be used for the return on the borrowing to fund the Borders rail project.

Stewart Stevenson: The actual interest rate will not be known until the project has reached financial close and will be dependent on such conditions as prevailing markets and negotiations with the successful bidder. Transport Scotland will monitor funding markets and will carry out sensitivity analysis around interest rates throughout the procurement period.

Rail Network

Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will guarantee that track will be laid for the Borders rail project before May 2011.

Stewart Stevenson: As answered in my statement to Parliament on 5 March 2008 construction is planned to commence for the Borders rail project within the life of this Parliament.

Rail Network

Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the capital expenditure for the Borders rail project will come from the regulated asset base provided by Network Rail.

Stewart Stevenson: The capital expenditure for the Borders rail project will come from the non-profit distributing model which does not rely on the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) provided by Network Rail, but does not preclude its use in the event of Network Rail being selected as the contractor for the project. RAB and Non-Profit Distribution (NPD) are the options currently available, and the exact method will be determined when the delivery body has been selected.

Renewable Energy

Jamie Hepburn (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how much energy generated in Scotland has qualified for payments under the Renewables Obligation (Scotland) Scheme in each year since 1999.

Jim Mather: The information requested is not held centrally. The Renewables Obligation (Scotland) (ROS) is administered by Ofgem, whose website has information about the number of Scottish Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) issued since the introduction of the ROS in April 2002. Ofgem’s annual reports, containing information about compliance with the UK Obligations and the numbers of ROCs awarded, are available at:

  http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environmnt/RenewablObl/Pages/RenewablObl.aspx.

Renewable Energy

Jamie Hepburn (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what the total value of Renewables Obligation Certificates issued in Scotland has been in each year since 1999.

Jim Mather: The information requested is not held centrally. The Renewables Obligation (Scotland) (ROS) is administered by Ofgem, whose website, www.ofgem.gov.uk has information about the number of Scottish Renewables Obligation Certificates issued since the introduction of the ROS in April 2002.

  The ROS creates demand amongst electricity suppliers and thus a market for Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs), meaning that their value is not uniform and will vary depending on the conditions prevailing within that market at any given time. As a guide, the average price achieved at an auction in January this year by the Non-Fossil Purchasing Agency (Scotland) was £49.92 per ROC.

Taxation

Derek Brownlee (South of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many unincorporated businesses make income tax payments in Scotland, broken down by local authority area.

Jim Mather: The information requested is not held centrally.

  However, the Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) is an annual sample survey based on information held by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on persons who could be liable to UK tax. Results are published on the HMRC website. The survey is explained here:

  http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_distribution/personal-incomes-note.pdf.

  Based on the SPI, estimates of the number of individual taxpayers with self-employment income and the amount of that income (mean and median) are given in table 3.14 by borough, district and unitary authority and in table 3.15 by parliamentary constituency. See following links:

  http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_distribution/menu-by-year.htm#314

  http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_distribution/menu-by-year.htm#315.

  Confidence intervals are also provided. Please see the first link again for further explanation of these confidence intervals.

  Self-employment income includes profits, losses or income of a business that an individual carries on as a sole trade or as a partner in partnership. Some individuals are members of more than one partnership, some may conduct more than one sole trade and some may have a mixture of sole trade and partnership interests.

  Individuals are taxed on their total income, net of allowable reliefs, deductions and allowances. Their total income may include not only self employment income, but also income from employment, pension and investments. Consequently, the tax on income from business undertakings is not separately identifiable. While partnerships are required to make a return of their income, it is the partners who are charged income tax on their separate shares of the profit and other income from the partnership. There is no separate tax liability for each partnership.